Scholiast

“ From the system of instruction now pursued in our best common schools, a scholar of ordinary capacity is enabled to become a good reader, writer, and speller; to acquire a very good knowledge of geography and arithmetic, and a little insight into natural philosophy, physiology, grammar, and history, as well as to gain some habits of order and correct deportment. It is true also that in some schools considerable efforts are bestowed [20] on moral culture: this, however, depends upon the peculiar character of the teacher. ”

“ As Aim, an education, scholasticism aimed also at furnishing a training in dialectic and intellectual discipline that should make the student both keen and learned in the knowledge of the times. The scholastic course of study, which was given at first in the monastic and episcopal schools and later in the universities, consisted in the content, beliefs of the Church and the limited learning of the times arranged in a systematized form largely on the deductive basis of the Aristotelian logic. ”

“ At the University the Student first receives a clear idea of the nature and dignity of that vocation to which his life has been devoted beforehand. He must obtain that clear idea here: the Teacher in the lower Schools may look forward to another education for his pupils, and counts upon that; but the Academic Teacher has no higher instruction to calculate upon except that which the Progressive Scholar may bestow upon himself, to the capacity for which, however, the Teacher must train him so that he may have it in his power to become his own instructor ”

“ We believe that a critical examination of rational courses of study in the schools would show that little of the work could well be omitted; that nearly all contributes toward the end of a well-rounded education, indeed is necessary to that end; and that the training of faculty is only well begun at the end of the high-school course. Even the study of the classics, besides other incidental advantages, trains the critical powers, refines the taste, and is in an important sense a subjective study. ”

“ Every institution of learning should, therefore, as I think, strenuously endeavor to draw every one of its students, whatever his plan of life may be, into the influence of this study, by making it peculiarly attractive. And to this end historical instruction should be — and I trust here it is — put into the hands of men who with a thorough mastery of the subject unite a high degree of perfection in the art of teaching. ”

“ What, then, are the faculties which education is supposed to train? In my attempt to answer this question I will confine myself to the elementary school,—the only school which I can pretend to know well. A glance at the time-table of an ordinary elementary school might suggest to us that there were two chief groups of faculties to be trained—those which perceive and those which express, those which take in and those which give out. When such subjects as History, Geography, or Science are being taught, the child's perceptive faculties are being trained. ”

“ Not without deliberation do I class the Teachers in the lower Schools among true and not subaltern Scholars, and therefore demand of them that they attain possession of the Idea, and be penetrated by it,—if not with perfect light, yet with living warmth. He who is destined to study will, even while a boy, surround himself invisibly with the Idea and with its sanctity, and bathe his whole being in its influence. ”

“ The Scholar is destined in a peculiar manner for society: his class, more than any other, exists only through society and for society: it is thus his peculiar duty to cultivate the social talents, an openness to receive, and a readiness to communicate knowledge, in the first place and in the highest degree. Receptivity must already be developed in him if he has thoroughly mastered the requisite empirical sciences. ”

“ But in every case, and unconditionally, he must fill the Student with respect and veneration for the proper calling of the Scholar. The first object of all study,—to lay hold of the Idea from a new and peculiar point of view, is by no means to be given up either by the Student himself, or by the Teacher on his behalf ”

“ About 1100 there arose studia generalia, or what we should now designate as professional schools, called forth, as Professor Laurie believes, by the growth of learning demanding specialization, by the rise of a lay feeling in connection with the work of the physician, the lawyer, and even the theologian, and by the actual specializing of the three leading studies at different centers of instruction. These schools were open to all the world, free from monastic rule, and self-governing. The name university came later. ”

“ Let the constitution of it be like that of a university, Your Majesty, Chancellor; some of the first ladies in the kingdom sub-chancellors; whose care it shall be to provide instructors of real merit. The classes are to be distinguished by age—none by degree. For, as their qualification shall be gentility, they are all on a level. The instructors shall be women, except for the languages. Latin and Greek should not be learned;—the frown of pedantry destroys the blush of humility. The practical part of the sciences, as of astronomy, &c., should be taught. ”

“ Now, for the first time, when we have to accompany the Student from the Academy into Life, we must call to mind that the studies and character of the Progressive Scholar are not necessarily completed with his residence at the University ”

“ The Student who is penetrated with deep respect for the holiness of the Scholar's vocation, will be guided by that respect in his choice of a civil profession; and, particularly, in the province of learning, if he do not feel a profound conviction of his ability to fulfil its highest duties, he will choose a subordinate occupation, restrained from assumption by his reverence for the dignity of Knowledge. ”

“ We should form a mistaken estimate of the purposes of this institution if we were to suppose that its only, or even that its main object, was to furnish the means of instruction to those who, by the accidents of their position have lacked, or have enjoyed but to a limited extent, the advantages of the scholastic or academical training. That, no doubt, is one of the beneficial aims which this society endeavors to overtake. ”

“ They are distinguished by fervid and impressive eloquence, and set forth the dignity and duties of the Scholar, as deduced from the idea of his vocation, with clear, but sublime and spirit-stirring earnestness. He leaves no place for low motives or degrading propensities, but fills up his picture of the Scholar-life with the purest and most disinterested virtues of our nature. These lectures, and his own personal influence among the students, were attended with the happiest effects. ”

“ For this reason, the Teacher in these lower Schools should be a partaker of the Idea, because it is his task imperceptibly to familiarize the youth with the high and noble before he is able for himself to distinguish these from the vulgar, to accustom him to these, and to estrange him from the low and ignoble. Thus guarded in his early years, and thus prepared for higher progress, the youth enters the University. ”

“ Hence it happens that, while the contributions of American college teachers to the exact sciences, to theology and philology, metaphysics, political philosophy, and the severer branches of learning have been honorable and important, they have as a class made little mark upon the general literature of the country. ”

“ When the higher grades are reached, the pupils take more and more optional studies, and less and less required. And, as the curriculum widens toward the end of the course, the linguistic and scientific studies yield more and more to the inclination of the parent or the pupil, until the post-graduates of the high-school, as well as of the university, severally fall into chosen specialties, as their tastes and preparation may dictate. ”

“ And the divines, and such others as make show of learning, derive their knowledge from the universities, and from the schools of law, or from the books, which by men, eminent in those schools and universities, have been published. It is therefore manifest, that the instruction of the people, dependeth wholly, on the right teaching of youth in the universities. ”

“ The Teachers and Educators of those who devote themselves to the occupation of the Scholar may be divided into two classes:—they are Teachers either in the lower Schools of learning, or in the higher or Universities. ”

“ Were it possible to have a Normal School, not which should undertake to teach the entire encyclopædia of the sciences, but which, limiting itself to its one main function of developing the art and mystery of communicating knowledge, should turn out College Professors, and even Divinity, Law, and Medical Professors,—men who were really skilful teachers,—it would work a change in those venerable institutions as marked and decisive as that which it is now effecting in the common schools. ”

“ Every college should devote at least two years of its course to the study of philosophy. Education without a sound philosophy must always be a mere broken shaft, a truncate cone, an abortion. We ought to organize a crusade for the welfare of philosophy in our colleges. I was right glad, Mr. World, to hear you advocating the study of this crowning branch of education, and insisting, I think, upon sound scholasticism. Scholastic philosophy, that is the philosophy. ”

“ The scholastic then follows the ordinary course of an undergraduate at a university. After passing five years in arts he has, while still keeping up his own studies, to devote five or six years more to teaching the junior classes in various Jesuit schools or colleges. ”

“ In my first term I spread myself through the common school, the business, the college preparatory, the collegiate, and the theological divisions of the University! It was akin to taking an academic ride in five carriages at once! When the professor dismissed me from [82] the college class in logic I went immediately into the basement, where I joined the grammar class, and from the grammar class I went to the theological department and recited on Church History. ”

“ I have to speak as a Scholar, before future Scholars, of the Scholar’s vocation. I must examine the subject to its foundation; exhaust it, if I can; hold back nothing in my representation of the truth. And if I discover for the Scholar a vocation most honourable, most lofty, and distinguished above that of all other classes of men, how is it possible for me to lay it before you without exceeding the limits of modest expression, without seeming to undervalue other vocations, without being apparently blinded by self-conceit? ”

“ Both these callings belong to the vocation of the Scholar in its proper and highest sense, and not to the subordinate Scholar-occupations, which devolve upon a man only because he has not attained the proper end of his studies. ”

“ The term "college" can be properly used only of an institution which offers training in the liberal arts and sciences to youth who have completed a standard secondary school course of study. The purpose of college teaching is to lay the foundation for intelligent and effective specialization later on, to open the mind to new interpretations and new understandings both of man and of nature, and to give instruction in those standards of judgment and appreciation, the possession and application of which are the marks of the truly educated and cultivated man. ”

“ The notion is gradually gaining ground that common-school education is as good as college education; that extension lectures and summer classes are acceptable substitutes for continuous study and mental discipline; that reading translations of the classics is better, because easier, than reading the classics themselves ”

“ Having now after a fashion gone through the description of such Societies and Institutions, as we have thought most fit for the advancement of Reall Learning, and among the rest, of the Ergastulum Literarium for the Education of Children, we now come to speak of such Bookes, as being well studied and expounded in those Schooles, would lay a very firme foundation of Learning in the Schollers. ”

“ The elective principle was broadened so as to bridge the gaps between preparatory school and college, and underclass and upperclass years, giving the student in his underclass years a broad general training in subjects deemed fundamental to real education, and in his upperclass years requiring him to follow continuous work in one of three divisions of studies, the literary-philosophical, the historical-economic, or the mathematical-scientific. ”

“ PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS, UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI.
EDUCATORS, to-day, are divided into two schools, especially with regard to colleges and universities. The older of these schools insists very vigorously upon the importance of thorough instruction in the so-called "dead languages," and makes all else subordinate to them. The new school, on the other hand, the school which seems to be steadily gaining ground, upholds the claims of the sciences, and gives to them the places of honor in every general course of study. ”

“ In England, when systematic attempts began to be made for the improvement of education, one of the chief defects was found to be the insufficient number of qualified schoolmasters, and the imperfect method of teaching which prevailed. This led to the foundation of normal and model schools for the training of masters, and the exemplification of the best methods for the organization, discipline, and instruction of elementary schools. ”